Can America Control the Arab Spring?

To be clear, it’s damned difficult to know what the right thing to do in the Middle East is. The discussion I would like to see is not Romney-Obama tit-for-political-tat, but a clear, logical comparison of the two candidates’ strategic visions for the Middle East in the Arab Spring/Islamist era. I would like to see some leadership.

I would also like a pony.

If both candidates believed that it was in their interest to present such a comparison, that is what they would do. Clearly, the Romney campaign at least does not believe that presenting such a comparison is in their interests. That fact alone should be relevant to anyone’s vote, and that’s the actual relevance of the “horserace” coverage.

But that doesn’t mean I can’t try to oblige.

I am not sure that either of them have what one would call a “strategic vision” in the sense that Rod means it – something akin to Bush’s “freedom agenda” – and I’m not sure that an overarching strategic vision is precisely what is wanted. But if I had to estimate their core differences, here is how I would do it.

President Obama and Mitt Romney both assume that America is invested in events around the world, and in the Middle East in particular. But they understand that investment differently.

President Obama understands America’s centrality as an inescapable fact that, while valuable, imposes on America unique burdens. Sometimes those burdens are burdens of action, and sometimes they are burdens of restraint. President Obama is not really interested in reducing that burden – as, say, a Rand Paul would be. But he’s interested in managing it well, and maintaining American centrality (hegemony, if you prefer) by means of good management.

What does that mean for the Arab Spring/Islamist Awakening? Not any one thing, as should be clear from Obama’s record so far, which includes declining to get involved in the Tunisian revolution, trying to ease Mubarak out of office without abandoning the Egyptian military, isolating but refusing to intervene in the Syrian civil war, and actively intervening on the side of the rebels in Libya. That pattern, to me, suggests a man trying to get on the “right side” of events more than trying to dictate them. That’s not intended to be a criticism – it’s a description. King Canute was not particularly wise to try to dictate to the ocean rather than getting on the right side of the tide.

I believe Obama views the so-called Arab Spring as driven by the internal currents of the Arab world, and not something America can control. Given America’s inescapable centrality, however, those currents can’t simply be ignored, which means we have to surf those unpredictable waves as best one can, so as to keep our own interests afloat. Inevitable, sometimes we’re going to get wet doing so.

Obama clearly knows that Muslim terrorist groups exist that have declared themselves America’s mortal enemies. That’s why he keeps ordering the assassination of their leaders. But I don’t think he believes it is meaningful to say that “Islamism” – if political Islam can be described as having a coherent ideology – is America’s enemy, but rather a fact, with potentially negative consequences for America to be managed and countered.

Mitt Romney, by contrast, understands America’s centrality as a given that provides America with unique opportunities – particularly, to pursue a foreign policy without tradeoffs. He seems to think that he can dictate terms to the rest of the world, allies and enemies alike, and that because of our preponderance of power they will simply have to accept the terms. Or, alternatively, he believes that there are no costs to dictating terms that then are rejected. This latter possibility, by the way, is largely correct in the business world with which Romney is most familiar, where when you lose a deal you just move on to the next deal. Management consultants, unlike nations, do not have permanent interests.

Some have argued that Romney is a closet realist. I don’t see any evidence for this, and it doesn’t follow from the supposition that he isn’t a true believing crusader that in consequence he’s secretly the opposite. He could secretly be nothing in particular at all.

I do not see any strong evidence that Mitt Romney (unlike his running mate) really believes in the so-called “freedom agenda.” But he does seem to buy into the frame whereby “Islamism” is a thing, that can be fought and defeated, and that we should be fighting it – whether with bombs or press conferences or both is never very clear. I don’t know to what degree this reflects foreign policy ignorance – simple ideological constructs feel like knowledge to the ignorant – and to what degree it simply reflects his understanding of what his party’s base wants him to believe.

Neither candidate stands for a policy of strategic withdrawal, of reducing American exposure to conflict in the Middle East or elsewhere, and there is no major figure in either party – including Ron Paul – who has even articulated what such a policy would look like, and how such a transition would be managed. (Paul takes a principled non-interventionist stance, which is not at all the same thing as explaining how we get from the foreign policy we have to the foreign policy he would prefer in the safest, least-costly fashion to ourselves and our allies.) If you want to vote for such a candidate, rather than for the better of two alternatives both of whose overall policy frameworks you reject, you don’t really have an option in this election. If you want to vote for a principled opponent of the current foreign policy framework, even if that opponent doesn’t have an articulate vision of managing the transition, you have a couple of options out there on the fringes, the most viable of which (not very) is Gary Johnson.

19 Responses to Can America Control the Arab Spring?

I think you’ve nailed the question of Romney’s core beliefs, or rather lack thereof, on foreign policy and Ryan’s by contrast. In the same vein you also nailed it a while back that the worst that would happen with Romney and Iran is that Netanyahu would just catch him flatfooted a la Saakashvili and Bush (which of course would be pretty God-awful).

Your nuanced take on Obams and the big picture is also excellent as always.

Look across that region today and what do we see?” Ryan asked at the Family Research Council’s annual Values Voter Summit at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Northwest Washington. “The slaughter of brave dissidents in Syria. Mobs storming American embassies and consulates. Iran, four years closer to gaining a nuclear weapon. Israel, our best ally in the region, treated with indifference bordering on contempt by the Obama administration.”

These neocon humanitarian projects of exporting democracy are insane. They’re clueless when it comes to freedom.
We should have never gone into Iraq. We should have bombed the Taliban in Afghanistan, then backed off until they regrouped, came back to do it again and again until they got the picture. No troops on the ground.
Why should any American soldier die for such people? Most are illiterate and uncivilized and ingrates to boot. Why rebuild them and give them money. Let them live in their misery and let the one true God judge those heathens.
Same with all the other nation over there. If they harm or hurt us, bomb them into submission and just back off. If the rich Arab nations want them rebuilt, let them use their own money. Why should our grand-kids have to pay for their rebuilding?
So they’ll love us? Ya, right!

The assertion that Romney could be secretly nothing at all is hopeful. At least I hope so. His past conduct has not even been broadly conservative at times. It is way beyond discussion that Obama is incompetent, uninformed and essentially disinterested in the work required of any executive. The case for his re-election is simply that Romney is worse than him. Great. Just had another credit downgrade, Mr. Bernanke.If Romney is indeed “nothing” at all he does at least seem alive and interested in being President. And then we’ll at least have a chance he will engage reality.

In order for America to “control” Arab Spring, she has to be able to control, or at least to be influential part of, theological “debate” within Sunni Islam. The feasibility of this task is equal to the feasibility of rare elements mining at the Jupiter’s core.

The American Conservative (and Obama): “Why must the USA play the role of a global superpower?”
The Chinese, Russians, Turks, etc, answer: “By all means, each of us is more than willing to take over that burden over from you…but we can’t guaranty you will be pleased with the results.”
American Conservative: “Hey, that’s not fair! When we throw in the towel we expect everyone else to throw in the towel!”

Contrary to the neoconservative agenda,Dr.Ron Paul wants to allow rich nations to use their own treasure and troops to defend themselves and to stop attempting to use Our American Warriors as cannon fodder and Our National Treasure to finance their foreign nation defense.

Just what is this “America” whose hegemonic interests as stated above are paramount and central to the region – and every region of the world?

Is it an “America” defined by all the neighbors I’ve lived beside throughout our country – and who have had absolutely no say in or benefit from what this purported other “America” does and represents?

Or – the reality – is it shorthand for the overruling but exclusive interests of the financial oligarchy that gives the marching orders to whichever one of their political duopoly takes power on their behalf?

Really, trying to conflate the interests of the majority of the people of this country with the contrary ones of that elite 1%, calling it, fait accompli, “America”, reduces our nation to the irresponsible money power, not the accountable democratic power of a republic.

Defining this contrary rump of our nation “America” is just another way of averring, as all self-entitled aristocrats do, “L’etat, c’est moi.”